Exploring The Exploitation Of Women Through Sex Work And The Law

Gender and Crime: Inherently Exploitative of Women

The use of sex in advertising

Question:

Dsicuss about the Gender and Crime for Inherently Exploitative.

There is a very famous saying that “sex sells” and is usually used in context of advertising, where the people resort to sex for selling their product. And each time an advertisement is shown women are presented as the centre of sexual fantasy and are often projected in a derogative manner, almost like sex objects (Streitmatter, 2004).  Sex work is inherently exploitative of women, be it in the more sophisticated world of advertisements or the downwardly looked upon work of prostitution. Even the word prostitution puts the focus of women engaging in sex for money, in the minds of majority. Sex work particularly becomes exploitive for the migrant workers, where the women often have to resort to prostitution in order to earn their livelihood (Anderson and Andrijasevic, 2008). And at such instances, sex work takes the form of sex trafficking, even though the same is a distinguished subject, where the women are taken across border, to indulge in sexual activities, for earning their daily bread. At some instances, sex work is allowed, and at other instances, the same is just tolerated for the sake of it (Sunday News Online, 2017). In the following parts, the sex work has been analysed in context of the law surrounding it, to highlight that indeed sex work results in exploitation of women.

Sullivan (2010) has highlighted that there has been a moderate opening for legal sex work in the past three decades. In a number of jurisdictions, the escort agencies and brothels have been legalized, which has led to decriminalization of street based sex work in New South Wales. The approach taken by the nation is very different from the other developed nations like Canada and United States where majority of prostitution continues to be illegal. However, each Australian jurisdiction has different approach towards prostitution law and towards its policies. The reason why the change was adopted by the governments, from sex work being barred, to the same being allowed, stems from the strength of the sex worker advocacy groups, the feminist movements supporting law reform, and the different other contributory factors.

The need for bringing out the law stemmed from the need to protect the ones who were already engaged in sex work. There were a number of incidents where the women working in the brothels were being tortured and abused in the name of sex; and the migrant women were being forced to indulge in sex work to just survive; even though the brothels in the nation had the safest working environment in comparison to the other places in the world. Apart from this, the sex workers had to live in fear of arrest. But to give them a proper standing, and to maximize the occupational health and safety for the workers, the law was drawn (Sullivan, 2010).

Exploitation of migrant workers in sex work

Similar to Australia is the case of Sweden, where the women’s movement was a key factor in influencing the government policy in this regard. However, unlike Australia, buying sex has been made illegal in Sweden as a result of radical feminism, where the fears about foreign prostitutes and the liberal practices had a huge role to play. The ban on purchase of sex is deemed as an awareness of tendency of the Swedish people to take a strict stand on the issues, where the other nations have been liberal. Gould (2001) highlighted that the liberal feminists have defended this position that it is the right of the women to sell sexual services; and that by criticising the same the women would be treated as victims. However, the pragmatists have highlighted the morality of prostitution, where it was held that punitive laws were impractical and there was a need to replace with something where everything could work. However, the feminists like Shrage and Green have highlighted that prostitution is morally repugnant, exploitative and degrading for women (Green, 1989; Shrage, 1989). This notion is quite right. How can someone be allowed to exploit the body of another, just to satisfy their sexual urges for money? Prostitution is a type of violence which hits the women and gives them a degraded status in the society.

Without even exaggerated the facts, prostitution can be deemed as a synonym of sex trafficking, even when the two concepts are very different in terms of their core definitions. The reason for stating this is that in order to satisfy the urges of men, the pimps often exploit the foreign girls, where these girls are mistreated by their clients, apart from spreading life threatening sexual diseases. The girls who are brought from the east or the one who enter the nation on their choice, but, belong from east, are not well versed with the use of protection, owing to a lack of protection in their tradition. In their nations, condoms and other protective measures are simply too expensive. And in order to further the “urge” of the national clients, the pimps flood the nation with prostitutes from poor nations. The liberal view associated with the European nations, and Netherlands in particular, shows that prostitution is simply unacceptable. This is particularly in context of Dutch, where there has been a history of colonial exploitation. In the mentality of the Swedish people thus, the idea of prostitution as a job was an abomination (Gould, 2001).

The legal status of sex work in Australia and Sweden

FitzGerald (2010) presented the case of female trafficked migrant, where the vulnerability of the female trafficked migrants in United Kingdom was highlighted. She questioned on regulation of the state on the bodies and behaviours of the female trafficked migrants, which was entangled with the anti-immigrant agendas, where the aim was only to extent the power extra-territorially, of the state. She highlighted that the neoliberal state frames the idea of vulnerability of women as a distinctive category of meaning, which is the part of neoliberal state’s emerging geographies. It was further covered by her that the human trafficking and the issue of trans-border sex work provided an insight in the normative discourse through which the concept of female vulnerability was manipulated by the neoliberal states. The anti-sex work lobbyists have presented the evidence towards a culture where there is continued patriarchal violence against all women. Ad as a result of this, there has been a lack of appropriate anti-trafficking policy recommendations. Thus, there was a need for the non-Western women to be protected by the state through the law, in order to protect their bodies in terms of suffering associated with sex work, and the abuse coupled with it. This is in particular light of the policy of the European Union in context that the migrant women are a constant source of sexual exploitation. The key problem with the framing of human trafficking is that it runs parallel to the anti-trafficking initiatives. Such initiatives are gendered and racialised interpretations of gendered interpretations of female vulnerability for rescaling the attempts of managing the mobility of particular populations, both internationally and domestically.

The current feminist debate is over the sex work going beyond the issues of consent and force, as being the key aspects of sex trafficking, towards the more broader and ethical question regarding the very nature of sex work. The position of the abolitionist, i.e., who oppose sex work, is that based on the moralistic, religious and political conservatives. Though, the robust abolitionists have aged against the regulations, i.e., the ones who support sex work, position. Miriam (2005) has highlighted that pro sex work approach is dependent upon liberal model of agency, which is also contractual, and which presupposes and conceals the demand side off the prostitution as an institution. To put it more simply, it is argued that sex work is not something which the women have to provide necessarily and that it is actually demanded by men. However, against the abolitionists this view is the claim of regulationist, where they fail to legitimize or recognize the agency of women in sex work (Gore, 2014).

Debates within the feminist movement on sex work

The pro sex work argument is focused on the requirement of legitimizing sex work in order to maintain the dignity of the women who have no other promising economical options (Bell, 2009). And by opting for these regulations, the sex workers are more likely to be safeguarded from the conditions of sexually transmitted diseases, assaults and rapes (Dale and Rose, 2010). However, this approach proves t o be an inapt one in the Australian context, as the conditions of brothels, even when the sex work was not legitimized in the nation, was the best amongst the globe. Also, this approach fails in highlighting the women who are forced to be sex workers, particularly in the context of migrants. GAATW or Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women has insisted upon a distinction being drawn between free and coerced prostitution, in order for the migrant sex workers to get better access to social services and financial resources, instead of being deemed as sex trafficking victims (Stanford, 2017). But, who is to stop the migrants from accepting that they are not being forced to do sex and are instead choosing it freely? When a migrant can be brought from their nation to another nation, and forced into sex, who would protect them when they raise their voice against being forced to indulge in sex work, instead of going forward with this inhumane and undignified use of their body as their own choice (Murphy, 2013).

The distinction of GAATW also ignores the issue of the demand for sex by males, and thus makes a liberal assumption that freedom is just the state where the women are left alone, or the state where the women are not being forced to do something. In short, the conceptualization of prostitution as an institution is based fundamentally on the sex rights of men and the entitlement of men to demand sexual access to women (Stanford, 2017). An interesting claim make by the pro work position is there is an assumption on agency and victimization being mutually exclusive. So, where the sex worker is able to negotiate their working conditions, then she would be deemed to have agency and cannot be a victim. Where she is forced to indulge in sexual activities, she would be a victim and would not have agency. Again, a key point here is what would happen when a sex worker agrees to indulge to a particular sexual activity, but is forced into some other sexual activity. What would the woman be in such case, a victim or an agency? Another key point is all of this is that at each instance, each scholar has highlighted (O’Connor and Grainne, 2007). There is no mention of a man being forced into prostitution or a migrant being trafficked for sexual pleasures of women. At each and every instance, the focus has been over the degraded treatment of the women. Even when the context of pro sex worker is discussed, the empowerment of women is cited as a reason for allowing females to be indulged in sex work (Elms, 2010). However, this again proves them as being victims, instead of self-reliant individuals, working for their livelihood.

The need for protection of vulnerable women in sex work

On the basis of the discussion carried on in the previous segments, it thus becomes clear that sex work is actually exploitative and that too in context of women only. Owing to the patriarchal mindset, the women are still deemed as victims, who are forced to sell their bodies for money, in order to fill their tummies. It is an apathetic situation where the choice of the women is seldom given any weightage. Even though the condition in the nation is best when it comes to sex work, but the same cannot be stated in global context. In a global context, the women are still being trafficked and the migrant women are still being forced to enter into sex work as an intimidation and the only option before them to earn a livelihood, and in some cases, the same escalates to a threat of life. Australia has brought forward laws to regulate the sex work and to give it legal validity, but there is a different law for each jurisdiction. A person who is not able to earn their livelihood, is less likely to know what is covered under the law, to say that the sex workers are actually protected in the nation; thus, the chances of females being exploited for sex, are still present.

References

Anderson, B., and Andrijasevic, R. (2008) Sex, slaves and citizens: the politics of anti-trafficking. Soundings, (40), p. 135.

Bell, K. (2009) A Feminist’s Argument On How Sex Work Can Benefit Women. Inquiries Journal, 1(2), pp. 1-2.

Dale, G., and Rose, X. (2010) A response to the sex work debate. [Online] International Socialism. Available from: https://isj.org.uk/a-response-to-the-sex-work-debate/ [Accessed on: 30/10/17]

Elms, C. (2010) Sex Work – Exploitation or Empowerment??. [Online] The University of Nottingham. Available from: https://www.impactnottingham.com/2010/07/sex-work-exploitation-or-empowerment/ [Accessed on: 30/10/17]

FitzGerald, A.S. (2010) Biopolitics and the regulation of vulnerability: the case of the female trafficked migrant. International Journal of Law in Context, 6(3) pp. 277-294.

Gore, S. (2014) Is Sex Work an Expression of Women’s Choice and Agency?. [Online] E-International Relations. Available from: https://www.e-ir.info/2014/03/14/is-sex-work-an-expression-of-womens-choice-and-agency/ [Accessed on: 30/10/17]

Gould, A. (2001) The Criminalisation of Buying Sex: the Politics of Prostitution in Sweden. Journal of Social Policy, 30(3), pp. 437-456.

Green, K. (1989) Prostitution, exploitation and taboo’. Philosophy, 64, pp. 525–34.

Miriam, K. (2005) Stopping the Traf?c in Women: Power, Agency and Abolition in Feminist Debates over Sex-Traf?cking. Journal of Social Philosophy, 36(1), pp. 1–17.

Murphy, M. (2013) Prostitution by Any Other Name Is Still Exploitation. [Online] Vice. Available from: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kwp83z/decriminalizing-prostitution-may-not-be-the-answer [Accessed on: 30/10/17]

O’Connor, M., and Grainne, H. (2007) Gender-Based Domination Promotes Prostitution and Sex Trafficking. [Online] Gale Group. Available from: https://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/DocumentToolsPortletWindow?displayGroupName=Viewpoints&jsid=d0862d21e1427dd6d0eb8c990f657702&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010461210&u=pl7053&zid=18def8c1c966e7279189a032fc8a80b4 [Accessed on: 30/10/17]

Shrage, L. (1989) Should feminists oppose prostitution?. Ethics, 99, pp. 347–61.

Stanford. (2017) Is sex work inherently exploitative?. [Online] Stanford. Available from: https://stanford.edu/group/womenscourage/cgi-bin/blogs/sextraffickingandprostitution/2010/05/06/is-sex-work-inherently-exploitative/ [Accessed on: 30/10/17]

Streitmatter, R. (2004) Sex Sells!: The Media’s Journey from Repression to Obsession. Boulder, Colorado, United States: Westview Press.

Sullivan, B. (2010) When (Some) Prostitution is Legal: The Impact of Law Reform on Sex Work in Australia. Journal of Law and Society, 37(1), pp. 85-104.

Sunday News Online. (2017) Sex workers tell tales of ‘success’. [Online] The Sunday News. Available from: https://www.sundaynews.co.zw/sex-workers-tell-tales-of-success/ [Accessed on: 30/10/17]